Current Events of the TechnoPolitical World 1994 to Present.
American Politics today. With a special focus on The Impact of Digital Technology on Politics, Civil Liberties , Elections, Lobbying, and Life. ( and some other stuff too.) {MY COMMENTARIES ARE THE WORDS IN THE BLUE FONT.}

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

poster:"I would like to see a movie released with lots of extra clips so a person can legally make and share their own version of the film using the clips. Imagine how viral that would be."

SL : The tools are already out there and this is being done to one degree or another. (I've been working on a related project.)

Creativity on a personal level is expanding daily. I think we will eventually get to a point where we are much more interested in what we create ourselves for our small circle of friends and family than what others create for a bigger market.

The economics of having millions of people making their own art will change the salability of creativity, but as a culture we will likely be better for it.

Re: Creativity on a personal level is expanding daily. // The economics of having millions of people making their own art will change the salability of creativity, but as a culture we will likely be better for it.

Justices Allow Search of Work-Issued Pager

WASHINGTON — A California police department did not violate the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it audited the text messages on a pager the city had issued him, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday.

The decision represented only a preliminary attempt to define public employees’ Fourth Amendment rights in the digital era, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the court, took pains to say that the ruling was narrow and closely tied to the facts.

Still, the decision puts government employees on notice that electronic communications on devices provided to them may not be subject to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches, as long as their employers have “a legitimate work-related purpose” in inspecting the communications.

Justice Kennedy said the court was uncomfortable fashioning comprehensive legal rules, given the pace of technological and cultural change.

“The court must proceed with care when considering the whole concept of privacy expectations in communications made on electronic equipment owned by a government employer,” Justice Kennedy wrote in a part of the opinion joined by every member of the court except Justice Antonin Scalia.

“Cell phone and text message communications are so pervasive that some persons may consider them to be essential means or necessary instruments for self-expression, even self-identification,”

Justice Kennedy went on. “On the other hand, the ubiquity of those devices has made them generally affordable, so one could counter that employees who need cell phones or similar devices for personal matters can purchase and pay for their own.”

The decision did not address the privacy rights of people employed by private companies.

WORRIES ABOUT E-VOTING PERSIST AS PRIMARY LOOMS

Twenty counties have raised concerns about the shift from lever machines to electronic voting devices, which the state is belatedly supposed to make for the upcoming statewide primary.

Throughout New York State, county legislatures and election authorities have raised serious concerns about state and federal laws requiring them to replace lever machines with electronic systems before the September primaries.

The advocacy group Election Transparency Coalition has a map showing that over 20 counties that have passed resolutions or sent letters to the State Board of Elections opposing the transition. The election commissioners of Nassau County have filed a lawsuit to stop the transition to computerized machines on the grounds that the new machines are untested, faulty, owned by a corporate giant and prone to ,,,,,,